The Los Angeles Superior
Court will not negotiate with striking interpreters until they return to work,
the court’s chief spokesperson said Friday.

Although interpreters
said that they remained hopeful that a resolution could be reached, court
spokesperson Allan Parachini said the interpreters would have to end the
now-four-week-old walkout before the court will return to the bargaining table.

The interpreters went on
strike Sept. 5 after the court rejected their demands for a graduated pay scale
based on seniority, and unilaterally implemented a 4 percent salary raise that
the interpreters had previously rejected.

The parties said
somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of all certified interpreters are on
strike.

Interpreters Blamed

Parachini said that the
raise was the best deal the court’s budget allowed and laid blame for the
strike on the interpreters, saying that other court employees had previously
accepted the same raise.

Eric Valdéz, a certified
interpreter, disagreed, saying that the state budget allocated $12 million
which could be used to fund a graduated pay scale.

The court has remained
operational throughout the strike due to its provisional certification of 36
replacement interpreters, Parachini said. “All cases have gone forward that
needed to do so,” he told the MetNews.

However, Valdéz, who has
15 years of experience as an interpreter with the court, dismissed this
statement as untrue and claimed that the strike had caused massive disruptions
to the court. He said the court was repeatedly delaying proceedings, and
accused it of continuing some proceedings’ dates to as far off as December.

He also alleged that the
court had dismissed criminal cases and released defendants when replacement
interpreters were unavailable or could not keep up with proceedings. He said
that, while cases involving Spanish-speaking defendants went forward or were
continued, cases involving less widely-spoken languages where interpreters
could not be located, such as Ethiopian or Russian, were being dismissed.

Dismissals Denied

Parachini admitted that
the court had experienced some delays, but emphatically denied this charge.
“That is incorrect,” he said. “Not a single case has been dismissed.”

Sandi Gibbons of the Los
Angeles County District Attorney’s office told the MetNews that she was not
aware of any cases being dismissed or defendants being released as a result of
the strike,

Robert E. Kalunian of
the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s office also said he was unaware of any
dismissals or releases, and that, while the strike had affected operations, it
had not crippled the court.

Valdéz also accused the
court of systematically violating defendants’ due process rights. He said that
he had received reports of judges approving replacement interpreters who had
repeatedly failed certification examinations over attorneys’ objections,
pressing criminal defendants into service to serve as interpreters for other
defendants, and allowing defendants to plead guilty to ‘strike’ offenses when
defendants did not understand the ramifications.

He said of the
replacement interpreters that, “they may have good intentions, but they are not
capable,” and opined that the method used for provisional certification was not
legal.

Parachini said that he
was unaware of any defendants being required to act as interpreters, and said
that the court wanted to know if they had indeed occurred.

When asked about the
long-term impact of the strike, Valdéz predicted that the full impact will not
be seen for a number of months. He did note, however, that he expects the
strike to become the subject of numerous appeals and a large amount of future
caselaw.

Valdéz also pointed out
that the strike does not only affect the rights of criminal defendants – it
affects the whole community. “The lack of certified interpreters doesn’t just
affect defendants,” he said. As long as the strike continues, “victims are not
being heard.”